Only the White Roses Wilt
by Pashleyy
Summary: With a sigh, he took one last look around his music room, picked out the single white rose from the crystalline vase, and left without a word. Besides, he didn't take too well to goodbyes anyway.
1. Silly Fears

Hello! This is my first Ouran fanfic, so please be nice! I'm kinda an addict to roses, so I soooo totally had to incorporate roses! They're so cute and smelly-sweet and nice! I'm playing around with the idea of Tamaki's mother. We really don't see much of her in the anime (yes, this is mostly anime-based since I don't have the money to buy the manga, and don't have the patience to sit down and hunt for it online!) so I'm playing around with the idea "What if...?"

So, "What if..."

Oh! And before I forget...yes, this is mostly Haruhi/Tamaki and Haruhi/Hikaru! My favorites! 3 So oooh, how's she gonna double-team this one?

ENJOY!

* * *

"The red rose whispers of passion,  
And the white rose breathes of love;  
O, the red rose is a falcon,  
And the white rose is a dove.  
But I send you a cream-white rosebud  
With a flush on its petal tips;  
For the love that is purest and sweetest  
Has a kiss of desire on the lips."

- John Boyle O'Reilly _"A White Rose"_

* * *

**Only the White Roses Wilt**

:Chapter One:_  
Silly Fears__  
_

Haruhi sat down on the front steps of Ouran High School. She fanned her blazer out and wiped the sweat from her forehead. There were random spurts of yellow dresses through the gardens, and slight dashes of blue blazers, but she doubted any of them would be out for long. The week had been a continuous wave of heat, and it annoyed Haruhi to no end that Ouran hadn't issued their summer uniforms yet. "Dear God," she muttered with a tug on her collar, "you'd think with all these rich people they'd have built-in air conditioners in these things."

"Pfft," two identical voices intoned behind her. The twins looped their arms around her and sat on each side. "They do."

"I knew it," Haruhi hung her head. "So are we meeting today?"

Hikaru shrugged. "Dunno."

"We might," Kaoru chimed optimistically. "Our Tono might be up to it today."

"Idiot. Like anyone would be up to running a club after what happened last night between him and his father," Hikaru scoffed. "Think a little, will you?"

"I'm being optimistic."

"It's annoying."

"Well you're annoying --"

"GUYS!" The young woman yelled and put a hand over both of their faces. "Senpai's not the only one acting weird, you know." The twins cocked their heads simultaneously and blinked. She stomped her foot. "Stop fighting!"

"We," they pointed at themselves in disbelieve, "_fighting_?"

"Oh God," she put her head in her hands. There was only so much she could take in one day, and Tamaki Suoh had already stolen all of her patience -- and not because he was overly dramatic and annoying. In fact, today he wandered into school the exact opposite.

_"Tono!"__the twins had greeted together, lifting their heads from crooning to a lovely heart-shaped face. Haruhi remembered their slick smiles, and how it had dropped like slime from their faces. They had exchanged looks, and departed from the lovely girl. "Tono?"_

_Haruhi was seated on the opposite side of the Commons, nose-deep in Calculus. Her eyes wandered up from her notes as she watched Tamaki shuffle in through the lavish pink-hue entrance. Chills raced up her spine._

_In trudged Tamaki Suoh, eyes rung raccoon dark with a sleepless night, his books crooked in his limp arms. His tie was lopsided and loose, his hair unkempt, his blazer rumpled. A few girls gasped in ghastly shock, and twittered to themselves worriedly. They didn't dare get close. Even the twins backed away._

_The young woman named Haruhi Fujioka, on the other hand, did the exact opposite. "Senpai?" she abandoned her homework and fell into pace beside him. He didn't answer as they began up the long spiral staircase towards the Third Music Room. "Senpai, answer me."_

_"Go away, Haruhi," he muttered and passed on._

_Haruhi paused for a split second, then set her speed after him. "No I won't!" she hissed. "What's wrong?"_

_He ignored her._

_She grew frightened. Ever since Éclair Tonnerre had moved in and out of their lives, Haruhi grew frightened more and more often. It was a disease almost, and the only way to cover it up was to brush it off. She was tempted to. Oh, how she was temped to just snort and call him an ass, but fear makes people to silly things at silly times._

_And Haruhi later wished she hadn't done such a silly thing._

_Within a split second, she had grabbed his forearm. He stopped, but kept his eyes to the ground. "Senpai..." she gulped. "Please. What's bothering you?" _

_He only brandished an envelope, crinkled and dirty, from an inside pocket of his blazer, and handed it to her. "Don't let anyone else read." He began away again, the paused. "Not even the other Hosts."_

_And then he was gone._

Haruhi took the envelope out of her pocket and flipped it over to trace the broken French seal, golden and glimmering, the crackled, peeled letters S-U-O-H still visible if she smoothed the broken seal down. Her fingers shook. She hadn't opened it yet, afraid of what might have been inside. What monstrosities that would have caused her Senpai to act so foreign.

Hikaru and Kaoru exchanged looks. Kaoru nodded, stood, and left. Silently Hikaru and Haruhi sat, and then he pulled her close. "Our Tono is Tono," he told her softly. "He'll be back to normal soon, you'll see."

She nodded and placed the letter into her pocket again.

"He'll be fine," he soothed. "Do...you want to go get some strawberries? Aren't they fresh today at the market?"

She nodded silently.

"C'mon then. Don't let that stupid bastard get you down," and he helped her stand.

From the window of the Third Music Room, Tamaki Suoh watched two of his Hosts exit school grounds. He watched with dull eyes, and leaned heavily against the window sill. His lips curved into a pinpoint frown.

The music room was empty with silence. Even the piano sat silently against the back wall. Was this how he was going to remember his Host Club? It suited him, he thought sadly. It suited him just fine. There was a bouquet of roses in a vase on the table, newly bloomed and vibrant. Haruhi had picked them earlier that day from the garden maze.

_"Senpai, they didn't have anymore white ones," Haruhi pushed her way inside the Third Music Room, carrying a bundle of vibrant red roses. "Only this one." She shifted arms and held out a slightly wilting white rose with a brown spot in the center. "It's ugly. I didn't think you'd like it."_

_Tamaki rose from his seat at the table and came over to take it. "No, it's beautiful," he replied the best he could, and gave a little smile. "White roses always seem to be the first to wilt, anyway."_

_She stared at him unblinkingly. "Senpai? Are you OK?"_

_"Of course," he replied airily. "Why wouldn't Senpai be OK?"_

_"Are you catching a cold? This morning..."_

_He waved it off carelessly. "Bah! This morning was a total disaster! I'm so ashamed you saw me like that!" And he playfully romped over to a shelf, and hummed while he retrieved an empty crystalline vase from the top shelf. "So how is my daughter doing?"_

_With a sigh, Haruhi carried the roses to the nearby table. "Fine, fine."_

_"Oh? Anything interesting?"_

_"Nope."_

_"Such a shame!" He set the vase down harder than necessary, and his smile slightly faltered. He bit his bottom lip, and fisted his hands. He knew Haruhi could see right through him. She always could. At the moment he was regretting ever handing over the letter. Maybe if he asked for it back, the consequences wouldn't be as bad. Maybe if he --_

_Haruhi began placing the blood-red roses into the vase. "One," she counted. "Two..."_

_He opened his mouth to ask for the letter back, then shut it again, and watched her. Her hair fell into her eyes, and she occasionally pushed it behind her ear. He imagined she did that a lot with longer hair, and now that it began to grow back again, he could tell the habit was old and delicate. He memorized her brown eyes. Her fingernails cut to the cuticle. Her thin lips. Her height. The way her cheeks always seemed to blossom with red when he stared for too long. It tugged at his heart to memorize all of it -- all of _her.

_But he wanted to remember._

_"Eleven," she put the last rose in and frowned. "Huh, I thought I had twelve."_

_Helplessly, he knew he couldn't ask for the letter back. Instead, he extended the wilting white rose. "Here. A dozen."_

_For a rare and fleeting moment, she smiled at him. And he memorized that too._

He ran his fingers through his hair and bit his bottom lip. The white rose wilted still, the brown patch growing larger. It looked so silly and shrinking against the glorious red roses, and it looked so lonely too.

With a sigh, he took one last look around his music room, picked out the single white rose from the crystalline vase, and left without a word. Besides, he didn't take too well to goodbyes anyway.

Especially a goodbye to his Haruhi.

* * *

_Continue? Or No?_


	2. Considerate For You

Wow! Thanks you guys for all the rave reviews! I reckon this story really hit it off, huh? I am so stoked! You guys are awesome!

Sorry in advance for any mistakes -- I am not Japanese and I do not pretend to be (or study, for that matter). So I really can't judge or gage which encyclopedia or translation page I use. I'm more or less shooting in the dark. So any and all help on these things is mucho obliged!

Enjoy!

* * *

"The red rose whispers of passion,  
And the white rose breathes of love;  
O, the red rose is a falcon,  
And the white rose is a dove.  
But I send you a cream-white rosebud  
With a flush on its petal tips;  
For the love that is purest and sweetest  
Has a kiss of desire on the lips"

_-- _John Boyle O'Reilly_ "A White Rose"_

* * *

**Only the White Roses Wilt**

:Chapter Two:  
_Considerate For You_

At the head of the table, the high-back velvety red chair sat empty with the Host Club gathered around it, their faces long in worry. It was early in the morning, and soft clips of heels echoed down the pink marble hallways, soft girlish chatter running rampant outside the door -- customers awaiting the first pick of the day. It would have been in good business to open the doors soon, but hesitation fluttered across the Third Music Room like a horrible cancer, making the silence lethal. The red roses in the center of the table fell neglected, and weren't so vibrant anymore.

Kyoya pulled his glasses off the bridge of his nose and cleaned them with a satin handkerchief coolly. "He hasn't called in sick," was his response to the unanswered question.

Hunny pouted and hugged his bunny tighter. "Where could Tamaki-kun be?"

The twins gave each other curious looks. Like every other day, they sported the exact mirrored look. Both shrugged at the same time. "He could've run off with Éclair," Hikaru brushed off lightly.

"Sssh!" his twin snapped. "That's not funny!"

"What? I think it's hilarious."

Kaoru gave his brother a smoldering glare. It was a secret between them of Hikaru's crush on Haruhi. What was one competitor down? Then again, his brother looked just as worried as the rest of them, if not a bit moreso. That bothersome downward tug on his brother's mouth made Kaoru want to slap Tamaki when he came rushing in with glorious adjectives and a pompous lie about being late.

Mori just grunted and sat down in a slightly-less velvety chair. Hunny bounded over and put his chin on Mori's shoulder. "Where could he be? He's never late, right?"

"Are we going to open the Host Club or what?" Hikaru asked the raven-headed Vice President boredly. "Renge will be here any second, you know."

Kyoya replaced his glasses. "It is yet to be seen what we shall do."

"We've never had to open the Host Club without him before!" Hunny commented. "Oh, Tamaki-kun is so mean for hold us up like this!"

"Mean or not, we need to open up for business," Hikaru snapped agitatedly. "We can't wait for our King to just come traipsing in here any time he very well damn wants! He's got responsibilities too, you know!"

Hunny shrunk behind Mori. "I was just saying..."

"So was I!" His voice grew tighter. He clenched his fists and suddenly looked away, ashamed. He was worried. They were all worried.

Haruhi could feel their worry pulsating like a throbbing wound. She bit her bottom lip and looked out the window to the early morning grounds, the sky still a soft marshmallow pink, the grass sparkling like diamonds with dew. The fountain trickled cold bursts of crystal clear water from the top of the statuette, gleaming like cellophane as it toppled down the hands and mouth of the goddess it spouted from. Little spots of yellow dresses flittered in peer groups, oblivious and naive to the melancholy atmosphere in the Third Music Room.

She squeezed her eyes tightly closed and shifted, feeling Tamaki's letter brush against her side from an inside coat pocket. Should she tell them about the letter? -- Who it was from? What it said?

No. Tamaki-senpia would return. He promised, didn't he? When he first left, he told her he wouldn't go again. Not forever, at least. Never forever.

_The fall had scared Haruhi. For a moment, she thought that she would careen off the bridge alone, her hand unaccepted by the blonde-haired young man with dazzling eyes. But she was wrong, and he had tucked her into him as they sailed into the water together. And she was glad.  
_

_Carrying her delicately, Tamaki waded through the shallow river to the banks underneath the creamy bridge. In the distance, the black limo had stopped, and the faint glint of golden binoculars peered at him. He watched them for a moment, and then turned his head towards the brunette squirming to get out of his arms._

_ "I can very well walk, you know!" she argued. "Let me go, Senpai!"_

_ "But beautiful young ladies should never have to drag their dresses on this muddy grou--"_

_ She socked him one in the face, and he dropped her quite suddenly. She fell with an "oomph!" on the ground, and scuttled to her feet, billowing dress and all. It clung to her like a fat leech, and she could hardly even walk in it -- much less stay upright. _

_ Tamaki recovered, and rubbed his cheek in surprise. "What was that for, daughter?!"_

_ "For leaving us!"_

_"Huh?" He gave an innocent blink, and then his eyes warmed. He could see the blush that was coming over her cheeks, the goosebumps tingling up from her toes into her eyes where worry swirled with anger and confusion and something she didn't want to think about. He smiled knowingly. "...I'm sorry, Haruhi."_

_ "Yeah, well, don't do it again. Got it?"_

_ He was silent._

_ She frowned and came right up to him, and looked him straight in the eyes. Barely inches apart. He looked down, hesitated, and quickly looked away, afraid that he'd have to answer. He'd have to answer anyway, for she took his face in her hands and turned him towards her again. Her hands stayed against his cheeks, soft and warm and trembling._

_ "Promise me," she begged quietly._

_ Silent. Considering. Then finally, "For you."_

Haruhi knew he had lied.

She extracted the letter from her blazer, and stood. Everyone turned to her almost as if she had said something, and went quiet. Every Host studied her silently, and they took their seats. She gulped and peeled open the wax-sealed envelope, took out the golden-guilded letter, and gave it to Kyoya.

His dark eyes met hers, then he took the letter and opened it.

"He isn't coming back," her voice shook.

Kyoya finished reading, and folded it back up, his face unchanged from the solemn frown. Hikaru banged his fists on the table impatiently. "What does it say?"

But the Vice President only nodded towards the door and instructed Kaoru to tell the awaiting customers, "The Host Club will be closed for the remainder of the week, pending disbandment."

Each Host member went rigid. They couldn't grasp it. Except Haruhi.

She fell into her chair, put her head into her hands, and prayed that this was all an extremely horrible dream.

_"Not only for me, Senpia!" Haruhi tapped his nose playfully. "Promise all the Host Club. Every single one of us. Go it?"_

_ "I'll promise you," he told her solemnly. "I can't promise everyone else."_

_ She didn't know what it meant. If he left her, he left the Host Club as well. Wouldn't it be the same? Yes. If he promised her, he promised the rest of them too. They were linked, like intertwined circlets -- like flies caught in a spider's web. If the world spun for one of them, it spun for them all, and everyone would be dragged along for the ride._

_ Hesitantly, she moved a finger into his wet platinum hair. An impulse made her fingers crave to thread through it, wondering how silky it felt. How soft or starch. And -- not like she would admit it -- she wondered for a moment what his lips felt like too._

_ "Then we're stuck together," she lowered her hands and forced them behind her back with a grimace. "Just what I needed -- another year with you." It was hard to act sour when her heart hammered a million miles a minute._

_ "Oh, I suppose," he sighed dramatically. "But what would you do without me?"_

_ "Go back to my old life," she shot frankly, turned her back to him, and marched up the steep incline to where a battered carriage waited, the Host Club waving to them from the top._

_ She didn't see the sudden temptation that crossed Tamaki's eyes, or the last look behind his shoulder to the gold-sparkling binoculars, before he departed up the hill after her._

* * *

Continue or No?


	3. The Stupidity of Stupid People

Whew! I wasn't quite sure how to go about this chapter... but I think I did it pretty well! We haven't heard from Tamaki in quite a while (two chapters is a while, I guess!) so I think it's due time to give him some lovin'!

Thanks you everyone for reviewing! You guys totally ROCK MY WORLD UPSIDE DOWN! Seriously.

So, care to come with me to the land of romantic Eiffel towers, red scarves, and cafes? _Bonjour_, Paris!

* * *

"The red rose whispers of passion,  
And the white rose breathes of love;  
O, the red rose is a falcon,  
And the white rose is a dove.  
But I send you a cream-white rosebud  
With a flush on its petal tips;  
For the love that is purest and sweetest  
Has a kiss of desire on the lips."

- John Boyle O'Reilly _"A White Rose"_

* * *

**Only the White Roses Wilt**

:Chapter Three:_  
The Stupidity of Stupid People__  
_

Tamaki Suoh let out a long and tired sigh as he lugged his backpack onto his shoulder and exited with the steady stream of people disembarking from the red-eye flight to Paris, France. He never thought he'd ever breathe Paris air again after Eclaire. Or even think about Paris after Eclaire. That's what his life felt like. B.E. -- Before Éclair, and A.E. -- After Éclair. It gave him comfort to split his life so simply when he knew that nothing was simple about it.

He especially tried to not think about the Host Club. It wasn't simple enough to split in two.

As he stepped off the plane, the rich buzz of French filled his ears like cotton candy. It had been so _long_ since he had last heard such a sweet, romantic language. He had missed it terribly.

His blue eyes scanned over the awaiting crowd to greet their loved ones, and managed a smile. There, on the far end, was a small cardboard sign that read "TAMAKI!!" with a big scrawling heart around it. A young woman waved it at him with a flourishing smile. She wasn't Éclair. He tried to place her in the scant photographs his mother had mailed to him in the past years -- the ones his father didn't know about.

_Oh, it's Mrs. Kanan's daughter. Blaise...? I hope so. _He debated whether to call her by her name when she beat him to it.

She stuck out her hand promptly when he waded through the crowd to her, and said in a bubbly voice, "Bonjour! I'm Blaise Etoile! You're Suoh right? Right?"

"Bonjour," he greeted with a half-smile and kissed her hand. Just has he would in the Host Club. He grimaced when he remembered, and a well of sorrow filled his chest. Her hand was just as soft as the girls at Ouran, and just as pretty.

Haruhi's fingernails were always chewed off, his mind observed before he could stop himself, and it only caused more guilt. He shouldn't have done this to them. To her. He shouldn't have. But he had no other choice.

"Tamaki, please," he corrected her in his velvet voice, and Blaise blushed at his debonair smile. All girls around the world were the same. All for one exception.

Once, he'd tried to kiss that exception's hand, too.

_"What the hell are you doing, Senpai?" the exception cocked her head to the side, her voice level and unreadable. Her voice was always unreadable. He had clasped her hand in his, and had unconsciously raised it to his lips at the end of their wonderful waltz. His suit had still been sloshy from the dive into the river, and her hair was still dripping droplets of water onto her face. That did not stop them from dancing, though._

_ He had realized that his lips were pressed against her hand all too late. A rabid blush rushed across his cheeks._

_ Haruhi snatched her hand away and rubbed it off on her gown. "You're impossible," was her reply._

_ "It -- It's a habit," he stammered. "I'm so sorry, my daughter! But you need to be courted once in a while!" He flourished his hands to take attention away from his still-red face, and he had desperately hoped she wasn't mad._

_ "Feh," she rubbed her nose and gave a sidelong look at the crowd. "What would your fangirls think of you falling for a boy, huh?"_

_ Tamaki blinked stupidly, then turned his head towards the crowd. About a dozen girls oogled at them with hearts blooming in their eyes. He gave a haggard sigh. "Touche," he replied dismally._

_ He had thought he saw a ghost of a smile play upon Haruhi's lips before she turned to watch the first burst of sparkling fireworks light the evening sky._

Blaise Etoile giggled and folded the cardboard up to stick it in the trashcan on their way to luggage check. "Oh, my mistake, Tamaki. I'm not that hip on Japanese culture, you know? Forgot the whole last name/first name caboodle."

"It's been a while since I have been in the French culture," was his reply as his mind spun 3,000 miles away to a small music room. He wondered if the Host Club was courting yet (it _was_ afternoon there, wasn't it?), and who would take his place. And, distantly, he wondered if Haruhi ever read the letter, and if it meant anything to her at all.

"Everything and nothing has changed. You'd think that things change over time, but they don't. Everything repairs itself and goes back to whatever its done for however long its done it." Blaise tagged Tamaki's luggage before he could get to it, and hauled it off the conveyor belt. "But I'm blabbering, right? C'mon, the taxi's waiting."

Tamaki gathered his other suitcase and followed the golden-haired Blaise Etoile out of the airport and into a small, cramped taxi that whirled across Paris, in all its delicate splendor and romance, to a small cornflower-blue cottage nestled beautifully between a picket fence, and a sprawling oak tree.

Tamaki got out of the taxi, and froze. His breath stopped, and swirled homesickness in his chest.

A woman stood on the porch, her golden hair ringed up in cascades around her face. She outstretched her arms, her dazzling blue eyes sparkling with all the universe inside of them, and Tamaki went running.

_**-- -- --**_

Haruhi knelt in front of her mother's picture, and lit a candle. The room smelled like burnt bacon from her father's breakfast escapade. (He thought that maybe if he cooked a good breakfast, he would cheer his daughter up. He ended up roasting his eyebrows off.) She inhaled the vanilla and lavender scent and exhaled through her mouth slowly to calm herself. Her fingers gripped tightly to her dress, white-knuckled and shaking. The letter from Tamaki was safely in one of those clenched fists, crushed beyond repair.

_Stupid Senpai,_ she cursed him. _Stupid, ignorant Senpai! _

What gave him the right to do this? Wasn't it clear when she drove a carriage up beside a car on a bridge (and then fell off that bridge) that she was devoted? -- an everlasting friend?

_Isn't that good enough for him?_ She asked herself angrily.

Apparently not.

"Mom," she forced the syllable out, trying not to choke on her anger. "I need your advice."

Like always, she was greeted with acute silence.

"This _stupid_ guy from Ouran has _stupidly _gone and disappeared on all of us _stupid _Hosts. And now he's in _stupid _Paris for some _stupid_ God-forsaken reason because he's so _stupid _that he doesn't understand... he doesn't... HE'S SO _STUPID_!" She rabidly wiped her hand over her eyes and swallowed hard.

"You know," said her father from the doorway, "I think she gets the point that he's stupid, darling."

Haruhi quickly rubbed her eyes free of tears and stood in a rush. "I was just... just -- just talking to her about school is all."

"Huh," he replied, taking his shoes off and coming up to her. He put his hand on her forehead and looked into his daughter's swollen eyes. "My Haruhi doesn't cry over boys at school, now does she?"

"No," she replied curtly. "No way."

He frowned, then patted her head softly. Timidly, she looked back up into his eyes, and he knew she was lying. He might not have been the brightest bulb in the pack, but he knew when his daughter lied. Her mother couldn't lie either. Not really. "Haruhi, lemme tell you something. You can sugarcoat the world in monotonies and levelheaded nonsense but it won't help you in the end. Sometimes you just have to go with whatever this thing right here," he pointed at her heart, "is telling you to do. And I wouldn't warrant that you ignore it either." He kissed her forehead, and knew the reason for his daughter's moodiness. Whatever man made her cry, the poor bastard would feel his wrath whenever he returned. He wouldn't mind yanking every last golden hair from the boy's precious head. "If you do ignore it, Haruhi, then you might miss the best thing in your entire life."

Haruhi's eyes widened. She wanted to laugh. _Tamaki -- the best thing in my _life_?_

"Oh, my little Haruhi's growing up!" her Dad squealed, and wrapped his arms around her. "I'm so proud of my daughter!"

"_I'm so proud of my daughter!" Tamaki squealed as he wrapped his wiry arms around her and spun her into a tight and suffocating hug._

Her heart stopped in her throat. And in that moment, pressed up against her father's fake boobs, she knew exactly what she had to do.

* * *

I wonder what her Dad uses for fake boobies... Hmmm.

_Continue? Or No?_


	4. Terminal Illness

Phew! Well, it's been a while, eh? This chapter was fun to write, probably because I beginning to become a big-time Haruhi/Hikaru shipper. Whoot! Haha, anyway, I'm not really sure how I feel about some of the parts in this chapter, and some of it is in French, so I reckon you'd better open up Babblefish or something.

OR I might be kind enough too...

* * *

FRENCH VOCABULARY

_Combien_? - How much?

_Je parie que vous ne comprenez pas ce que je dis maintenant._ - I bet you don' t understand what I say now.

_J__e ne suis pas stupide._ - I am _not _stupid.

_Touché - _Acknowloging a hit.

_Parlez-vous français?_ - Do you speak French?

_Mon ami - _my friend

_Alors avez-vous besoin de moi?_ - Then do you need me?

_Je ne sais pas. - _I do not know.

* * *

See, aren't I just super? Anywho, I'm not going to number them or anything because numbers just cluttered it up...Anywho. I hope you enjoy this chapter! I reckon it's foreshadowing? Or is it fleshing out what she is losing?

Hmm, who knows?

Enjoy!

* * *

"The red rose whispers of passion,  
And the white rose breathes of love;  
O, the red rose is a falcon,  
And the white rose is a dove.  
But I send you a cream-white rosebud  
With a flush on its petal tips;  
For the love that is purest and sweetest  
Has a kiss of desire on the lips."

- John Boyle O'Reilly _"A White Rose"_

* * *

**Only the White Roses Wilt**

Chapter 4  
_Terminal Illness_

The airport was stuffy with congested fliers streaming to one airport terminal or another like a horde of ants. Haruhi tried not to shrink into herself as she stood in the middle of it all, a sole duffle bag slung over her shoulder. She didn't think she'd be gone long, and she was never one to pack much.

"You're too practical!" her Dad had moaned after he had insisted on her carrying a suitcase at least, and she had sharply declined. "Just like your mother…"

"Mom wouldn't be going halfway across the world looking for a stupid idiot," she muttered to herself darkly, checking her plane ticket for the terminal number. Terminal 7. The signs pointed to the left, and so she went.

It was slightly odd that she went by herself, but she didn't want the whole Host Club trailing in her wake. That was the last thing she needed. They didn't need to be as involved as her. It shouldn't have affected them as much as it had, and she wanted to protect them from whatever Tamaki would tell her. They didn't need to see him.

Then again, neither did she.

"Seven, seven, seven…" she chanted in a sutra, determined to keep her Sempai out of her mind. "Seven!"

The terminal was crowded with sleepy people, nose-deep in newspapers, magazines, laptops, and Blackberries. She heaved her duffle bag higher on her shoulder, summoned up her courage, and plopped into a seat beside a graying man in a bright orange polyester suit.

_See, this isn't so bad,_ she thought to herself, relieved. _Now all you have to do is get on the plane…_

Haruhi wasn't scared of heights, per se, but she had never flown before, and first-flight jitters were crawling up her arms like little ants. She hated being scared of anything -- but especially of the unknown.

_Just calm down._ She took a deep breath, and then pulled out her Calculus book from her duffle bag. There was always homework to do at Ouran, and she always wanted to stay a week ahead of everyone else. Just incase the Host Club interfered. But then the thought occurred to her -- _There is no Host Club anymore…_

It was like a sharp crystal bell. It finally clicked.

_There is no more Host Club._

Slowly, she began to close her book, but then stopped herself. She looked down to the masses of numbers, dashes, and division signs, and took out a pencil and paper, and set to work. Just because there wasn't a Host Club didn't mean life wouldn't interfere, and the running numbers humming in her head kept herself in check.

_Why am I so hormonal today?_

"Problem 19 is wrong."

Haruhi gave a start and shot her head up to meet dark eyes under a dark sweep of silky hair. "…Kyoya?"

"As is problem 22. Distracted?" He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. He stood beside her as if it was the simplest thing in the world, and didn't bother to address how he got there. "Or are you afraid to fly alone?"

"Well -- I --"

"I told you she'd be here!" came Hikaru's cry from the stream of people. He pushed through with a triumphant smile, but then his smile dropped when he saw her face. "What's wrong?"

Haruhi's eyebrow twitched. "Why the hell are all of you here?"

"Haru-chan!" Honey bounded up behind the youngest redhead twin, hugging his pale pink bunny with a hundred-watt smile. "Whaddya think we'd do? Let you go alone?"

"I was hoping…" she muttered to herself.

Honey pouted. "Haru-chan!" he sniffled. "You'd go all alone with out us? Into big Paris?"

"You don't even speak French," Kyoya agreed levely.

"Some," she argued indignantly.

"Combien?" asked Hikaru, his arms crossed over his chest. She didn't like his tone of voice._ Is he being condescending?_ "Je parie que vous ne comprenez pas ce que je dis maintenant."

"Je ne suis pas stupide," Haruhi seethed between clenched teeth, and the younger redhead blinked in surprise.

"Touche," he murmured, surprised, then jumped right back on the wagon by saying "But you still need us whether or not you can speak French or not--"

"Does Tamaki-kun know you know French?" Honey asked softly.

Haruhi dipped her head down and refused to look at them. "It never came into conversation. And what's it his business anyway?" She murmured, and felt guilty. Well, almost.

_"Parlez-vous français?" Tamaki asked, falling in step with Haruhi to her forth block English. Haruhi was catching up on the reading she hadn't had time to do between Calculus and the Host Club sucking up her time, and she rather didn't like Shakespeare or his sonnets. All he ever seemed to write about was love._

_"Parlez-vous français?" he repeated._

_"No," she replied firmly in English._

_"English instead?" Tamaki asked, almost horrified._

_"It's more practical."_

_"It's not elegant, mon ami!" he stole the book out of her hands and hid it behind his back. She stopped dead, and glared at him with a hand outstretched. He ignored both her glare and her hand. "French is the language of love! Of beauty and beautiful people!"_

_"It's trash," she replied deadpan._

_Tamaki's mouth dropped open._

_Haruhi popped his chin and he shut it again. "I don't need it, Sempai, and things I don't need I don't care about."_

_She snatched her book out from behind him, tucked it safely under her arm, and carried on to her English class. But she heard, even when he whispered it in French, his mumbled words,_

_"Alors avez-vous besoin de moi?"_

_And she carried on without a single word._

"Je ne sais pas," she finally whispered to herself, and rose her eyes to meet Hikaru's. "I need to go alone, Hikaru."

There was an angry fire behind the twin's eyes, but he pursed his lips and forgot to breathe instead. He plunked down next to her in the chair moodily, and Haruhi knew he wasn't going to budge. Why was he always acting so childish? Not so much un-like Tamaki either.

"I need to do this alone," she repeated stonily.

Kyoya fixed his glasses. "I will arrange our refunds."

"No," Hikaru snapped. "I'm going with you."

"No, you're not," she replied levelly.

"I'm not letting you go across the world alone!"

"I'm not helpless! I can do it all myself!"

"Oh?" he scoffed.

Haruhi gripped her pencil tightly, and resisted the urge to drive it into his eyeball. "What, you don't trust me?"

Kaoru quickly gobbled for words before his twin could speak. "No! Of course not! It's just--"

"We don't trust anyone else, remember?" his twin snapped sharply, his eyes darkening to coal.

Haruhi set her jaw. "Well get over it."

Before she could move, he grabbed her by her shoulders, and she couldn't meet his eyes. "Haruhi…" he said softly, and she lost the tenseness in her muscles. His hands she felt so small against the world, and a tremor of fear ran through his bones. He wasn't stupid. He knew that she could fend for herself. But there was something raw that had bubbled up out of some inner chasm inside of her that coated her with a sheen of melancholy that he couldn't rub off. He knew that no matter how much he joked or laughed or pranked her, she wouldn't laugh. Not really, anyway.

And he knew he didn't have the cure.

He wanted to tell her how sorry he was, and how he wanted her to smile again, and laugh, and forget about the man named Suoh Tamaki. He wanted to kiss away the tears hidden in her chocolate eyes and love every last inch of melancholy away. He wanted to be her cure, however sappy that sounded, but he wasn't the right dosage, or the right medication.

The plane ticket in her hand was the prescription, and the pill waited somewhere in the rural outside of Paris.

"I'll be here, then," he told her softly, and she nodded without meeting his eyes. Then he stood, quietly, and took Kaoru's hand in his, and the Host Club meandered away without Haruhi Fujioka.

For the first time in her life, she was glad.

_A world without the Host Club.  
_

"Flight 452 now boarding to Paris, France," rang the flight attendant's nasally voice.

The brunette gathered her duffle bag and tossed it over her shoulder. She went to the door and showed the attendant her ticket. A race of a chill ran up the back of her spine when the attendant checked it, and with one more step she couldn't turn back--_wouldn't_ turn back.

_It's still an option. Just turn around. Go home. Forget about the stupid bastard._

Her head betrayed her, and she looked over her shoulder.

And there was Hikaru, standing to watch her leave, a stance to his shoulders that was foreign and natural. There was a pang in her gut, and for an insane second she had the notion to forget the silly plane, rush back to the redhead with his lips pursed into a tight-lined frown, rub the strange from his shoulders, and forget she ever knew why it looked so natural.

_Stop thinking about it!_

Fear filled every pore. No, she didn't feel that way. She knew she didn't. All of a sudden, all she wanted to do was hurry down the walkway into her seat where she didn't have to see him, and where she didn't have to remind herself that she, too, was stupid.

_Stupid, stupid stupid!_

So stupid for boarding that plane to Paris without realizing something good had happened behind her.

* * *

_So what has she really left behind? Who knows?_

_Revue, s'il vous plaît?_

* * *


End file.
